6 Most Important Things in Business Today

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Mar 13, 3:39PM EDT · Published Apr 19, 5:00AM EDT

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6 Most Important Things in Business Today — © courtesy of Intel Corp.

The Federal Aviation Administration ordered engine inspections after a fatal Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE: LUV) accident. According to Reuters:

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said on Wednesday it would order inspection of some 220 jet engines after investigators said a broken fan blade touched off an engine explosion on a Southwest Airlines flight, shattering a window and killing a passenger.

The order, called an air-worthiness directive, would require an ultrasonic inspection within the next six months of the fan blades on all CFM56-7B engines that have accrued a certain number of takeoffs.

In an annual letter from Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) CEO Jeff Bezos, he said the company’s membership operation has grown to over 100 million. According to The Wall Street Journal:

More than 100 million people globally are now paying for Amazon Prime, a sign of how Amazon.com Inc. has used the service to evolve from an online marketplace that struggled with profitability into an e-commerce powerhouse.

Amazon, which has never disclosed the number of Prime members before, revealed the figure Wednesday in Chief Executive Jeff Bezos’s closely followed annual letter to shareholders. The company said in late 2015 that it had “tens of millions” of Prime customers.

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Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) may get into the hardware business. According to The Wall Street Journal:

Facebook Inc. is planning to design chips that could be used in its consumer devices, artificial-intelligence software and data centers, according to a person familiar with the matter and recent job listings.

The effort is part of the social-media company’s nascent push to develop more of its own hardware.

The project to design custom chips, still in its early stages, could give Facebook greater control over the design and development of its various hardware projects under way, which include connected speakers and virtual-reality headsets, the person said.

The company that holds the controlling interest in MoviePass plans to raise money, which cratered its stock. According to The Wall Street Journal:

Helios & Matheson Analytics Inc. plans to sell up to $150 million worth of stock and largely pump the money into MoviePass Inc., the fast-growing movie-theater subscription company it bought last year.

The news sent the stock of the cash-strapped company down 17% to $3.19 in after-hours trading.

Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) has killed its wearables business. According to CNBC:

Intel on Wednesday confirmed it has chosen to close its New Devices Group, which has worked on augmented reality glasses and other consumer products.

With the move to leave the wearables market, Intel will remain focused on delivering chips for PCs, servers and other hardware, while also looking at emerging technologies.

California started an employee safety investigation of Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA). According to CNNMoney:

A California safety agency has launched an inspection of Tesla’s Fremont car factory.

California’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Cal-OSHA) opened the inspection on Tuesday. A spokesperson for the group would not specify exactly what triggered the action, only that it “takes seriously reports of workplace hazards and allegations of employers’ under reporting recordable work-related injuries and illnesses.”

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.